Friday, 20 May 2011

Guetta House: The New Landfill Indie

Take a look at this man. He is 43 years old (so his look is a bit 'give it a rest granddad') and is a music producer. His name is David Guetta and, unfortunately, he is responsible for the proliferation of a sound currently trundling towards pop music ubiquity.

The name of this sound is Guetta House. You will have heard it; it sounds like this, this and this. The first two tracks linked (Sexy Chick and Where Them Girls At) are Guetta productions and although they sound the same, aren't. The third (LMFAO's Party Rock Anthem) is not a Guetta production, but, along with the second, is currently in the UK Top 10, in addition to another Guetta single, Snoop Dogg's Wet/Sweat, a song that somehow manages to both make Snoop seem even more repulsive than previously imagined and suck all of the life out of Felix's Don't You Want Me in the space of just 3 short minutes.

This is obviously worrying. Although Guetta has been behind some very good records (Kelis' Acapella, When Love Takes Over with Kelly Rowland) his ratio of good to bad output is heavily weighted towards bad. Guetta House is not much fun and is rapidly becoming what Landfill Indie was to pop music a few years ago: a cheap and easy way to a surefire hit. It may be limp, lifeless and dull but get a ropey rapper on board and The Kids will lap it up.

The Landfill Indie bubble burst after about two and a half years, and chances are that the Guetta House one will too, if not more quickly. The problem is that at the moment it is in its ascendancy, and doesn't yet appear to be anywhere near its zenith, or perhaps more appropriately, nadir. Big American acts that would previously never have touched anything that comes under the 'dance' banner are champing at the bit to work with Guetta, Afrojack, Benny Benassi and suchlike and as a result Guetta House is quite literally 'taking over the airwaves'. It's safe to say that it's going to get worse before it gets better.